coloured hues on negatives

[bob_lucas1]

<p>My Husband has been scanning old negatives and putting them on a SD card some Dating back as far as 1956 .<br />But he has noticed that some have got a Green Hue on them , can you please throw some light on this for Him .<br>

Not only Green but also Blue and Orange .</p>

<p>Thank You From Mrs S.E.Lucas.</p>

[John Seaman]

<p >Colour negatives are very prone to colour casts. They actually have an orange mask which is part of the C41 developing / printing process. Other casts may arise because of the age of the negatives, or because they use older processes. Even if you have the scanning software set correctly to colour negative film, the software often does not remove these casts, and it's necessary to use an image editor such as Photoshop elements to fix the pictures.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >There are different ways of doing it. One method is to use the Levels feature (Control +L) and use the middle of the three eyedroppers against a part of the scene which should be a neutral grey, for example a tarmac path. This sets the grey point and should go some way to removing the cast. Otherwise it's a case of adjusting the individual RGB channels until it looks right on the screen.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >More information about the scanner and software, and about the type of film, together with examples, might help.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>"My Husband has been scanning old negatives and putting them on a SD card"<br /><br />An SD card is not where you should be storing your scans. An SD card is intended as temporary in-camera storage until files get copied onto a computer hard drive and then backed up to an external hard drive, disc, etc. SD cards are fine for the camera but for long-term storage they are fragile, easily damaged and so small they can easily be lost. <br /><br />If you're scanning, the scanner is connected to a computer and the files should be stored on the computer's hard drive. As with camera files, they should also be backed up, preferably to at least two locations. I put my camera/scan files onto the computer hard drive, an external drive and DVD discs. Remember what computer experts say -- it isn't a question of if a drive will crash but when.<br /><br />Obviously backup is less critical with scans than with original camera images since if worst comes to worst you can always go back and scan them again. But why risk having to do the work all over again when a couple of keystrokes can provide additional copies as protection?<br /><br /></p>

[John Seaman]

<p>I totally agree with Craig but are there some 35mm scanners which output directly to an SD card? In which case downoad the files on to a backed up hard drive or risk losing them.</p>